Business

From mom & pop highway shops, to ranching and farming, to oil and coal. In our region, business takes on many forms. Connect with our sub categories listed beneath "Ways to Connect" to refine your search for YPR Business News.

The Billings City Council will hold a special 5 p.m. meeting tonight at City Hall to discuss the proposed $165 million One Big Sky Center downtown.

MontDevCo LLC, the developer of the 70,000 square feet project, seeks up to $35 million in tax increment financing: also known as TIF, this is a kind of city-sanctioned loan, funded by public tax dollars, that shields borrowers for a certain number of years from area tax increases.

"It rained every day. I'm exaggerating, but only by two days," says farmer Jason Hunton.

When Mother Nature rears her ugly head, Hunton watches his fields. He farms both organic and conventional land in Junction City, Ore.

"We're struggling. We've got a couple of [organic] fields that have some real thistle problems. I want to get some tarps and solarize it — cover it up and see if we can get that to cook itself in some of the thicker areas," Hunton says.

Governors from the western U.S. converge on Whitefish this week for the annual Western Governors Association. Monday, they talked about international trade agreements between the U.S. and Canada.

The round table discussion between 10 western governors, a Canadian ambassador, and the premier of Saskatchewan, began with a question about the ongoing softwood lumber trade dispute between the two countries.

Transportation Security Administration agents at Logan Airport's Terminal C in Boston snapped to attention Sunday, when they came across a live 20-pound lobster lurking in a cooler among the checked luggage.

"The lobster was screened and allowed to continue on its way," TSA spokesman Michael McCarthy tells NPR in an email.

He tweeted about it Monday saying, "@TSA officers are skilled at screening all sorts of items in checked baggage...including this 20+ pound lobster at @BostonLogan."

Tim Mueller has raised corn and soybeans on 530 acres near Columbus, Neb., for decades, but now he is planning to take a huge gamble.

The big-box retailer Costco is building a new chicken-processing plant in Fremont, Neb., about an hour away from Mueller's farm. The company plans to slaughter 2 million birds per week. To raise all those chickens, Costco is recruiting about 120 farmers to sign on as contract poultry farmers.

Mueller wants in. But to do that, he plans to take out a massive $2 million loan to finance the construction of four chicken barns.